This is one of my favorite photos that I have ever taken, because of the darkness and the way that the man's image slowly appears out of the frame when you look closely at the picture.
The photo was taken in one of the homes of the Masai, one that belongs to a man named Lemain. He's one of the chief's sons. The home is built from cow dung, sticks, and mud wattle. Every nine years, the villagers move to a new village, and they burn their old homes to the ground to exterminate the termites.
Inside the homes, there is very very little light. The room is very warm and very smoky. The roof is low, so low that it's quite easy to bump your head on the rafters and transoms. In Lemain's home, here, there are three beds: one for the parents, another for the children, and a third guest bed. When the couple want to have domestic relations, Lemain says, they do so in the dark, with little regard for whether or not their children hear, because the relations are viewed as part of the cycle of life.
A woman stands in front of a Masai home.
The village chief. He has 35 sons from his seven wives.
A young Masai child on the savannah.
A sixteen year old Masai girl who is three months pregnant from her 45 year old husband looks curiously at me.
A glimmer of a smile.
Inside the smoky home.
Lemain, one of the chief's sons.
Long lobes.
A Masai man stands in the rain.
Under the acacia tree.
A lion's claws.
Jackson, a member of the Masai.
A lioness watches a giraffe cross the road.
